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Patrick Rauland: Hello everyone and welcome to Indie Board Game Designers podcast where I sit down with a different independent game designer every week to talk about their experience in game design and the stuff they've learned to get to where they are today. My name is Patrick Rauland, and today I'm talking with Jordan Draper who is the designer behind a whole range of games. Such as Tokyo Coin Laundry, I'm gonna totally butcher this one, Tokyo Jidohanbaiki–
Jordan Draper: You did ‘Tokyo' perfect.
Patrick Rauland: Tokyo Metro and a ton more. I know you can't see the games in front of you, 'cause this is a podcast, what is incredible about these games is they have really, really cool components which we are absolutely gonna talk about in the show. Jordan, welcome.
Jordan Draper: Hey. Thanks for having me.
Introduction
Patrick Rauland: Cool. So, I'm trying to do a little segment to welcome guests to the show. So, just before we get into the awesome questions about the components of your game, tell me a little bit more about you. I got three quick questions. If I met you at a convention, what is a game that you would definitely play with me?
Jordan Draper: Tokyo Highway.
Patrick Rauland: Tokyo Highway. Is that a game you designed, or is that a game someone else designed? ‘Cause it has the pull of Tokyo.
Jordan Draper: That's a game by a Japanese designer, and a company called Itten, that I'm good friends with. But, it's nice, because it's a strategic dexterity game that plays pretty quick. So, when you're at a convention that's exactly what you want, something quick and easy, that's fun to sit down, it's only two players. It's great.
Patrick Rauland: Love it, love it. Your favorite food?
Jordan Draper: Probably baked mac and cheese.
Patrick Rauland: Baked mac and cheese. Oh, my God. That sounds amazing.
Jordan Draper: Yeah.
Patrick Rauland: If you could only live in one place for the rest of your life, where would it be?
Jordan Draper: Tokyo, Japan.
Tell Me About Your Amazing Components
Oh btw I totally won my game of Pura in @TheJordanDraper's TOKYO JIDOHANBAIKI! Sorry, forgot to mention that. What kind of game would you make with these components?https://t.co/qdl1Bwfxi1 pic.twitter.com/KmIsXmpd79
— What's Eric Playing? (@whatseplaying) September 2, 2018
Patrick Rauland: Tokyo, Japan. All right, cool. So, let's talk about your games. If it's all right with you, I'm gonna try to get a couple pictures from your blog and I'll include them in the transcript, just to show some of these people, but you have … So, I'm just gonna pull up one game as an example, Tokyo Coin Laundry. You have these little washing machines, these little dryers, which look about two to three inches tall, and they actually open. They have detergent bottles and coins, and even some … kind of like clothing. I haven't ever seen components like this. What prompted you to make these realistic and unique components for your games?
Jordan Draper: Yeah. So, I really like setting a theme or an environment and living inside of that, but also I've studied architecture, and I'm self-taught in pretty much everything else that I do, and I love products, like well made products. So, I wanna bring product design into games, because it's not really there in the industry right now. I think as far as it gets is basically minis on stands.
Patrick Rauland: Yeah.
Jordan Draper: I don't see any reason why we can't have functional items or really well made thought out iterated products that have gone through months and months of design work to use inside of the game. So, if I can hit all of that together within a game and then have gameplay on top of that, that's incredible. That's basically my goal.
Patrick Rauland: I wanna ask you more questions about your components, but are you the person that is creating these … 'cause I believe you 3D print them. Are you the person that creates the 3D files and does all that product development?
Jordan Draper: Yeah. So, I do literally 100% of everything on all the games. From running the Kickstarter to designing the components, doing the graphics, the artwork, manufacturing, fulfillment, the whole nine yards. I just got a nice SLA 3D printer … What was it? Like, eight or nine months ago, which was great, because I could really get down and iterate with Coin Laundry. Before this, I made Jidohanbaiki, which is a game about vending machines. I had little drinks in an actual vending machine tower that you drop the drinks into. So, that was like months of iterating with Shapeways, 3D printing stuff and sending it to me.
Patrick Rauland: Oh, wow.
Jordan Draper: It makes a world of difference to have a 3D printer.
Patrick Rauland: Oh, absolutely. I can't believe you made a game with 3D printing components and having to go to a vendor, like Shapeways, that'll just … Yeah, you can upload your designs and they print it and send it to you, but that's a whole different thing.
Jordan Draper: Yeah.
Patrick Rauland: There's weeks between each iteration, I imagine.
Jordan Draper: Yeah, totally. It makes you think a lot harder, actually, about what you're getting every time you turn something in, because you're like, “All right, now I gotta wait three weeks and this is really expensive. So, I need to make sure that I'm at the point where I think it's gonna be where it needs to be.” Doing some virtual tests and stuff like that. So, just having one at home was really nice. I probably printed almost 100 different iterations of the washing machines to get them where I wanted them to be.
Patrick Rauland: Yeah, there are a ton … While researching this, there are a ton up on Twitter. If you just go to your Twitter profile, there's just a ton of … It's really cool, right? ‘Cause I think you showed some models that didn't work, like maybe the top was a little bit … it looked like it was melted, or something didn't quite form right in the 3D printing process. I have to say, it's really cool to see that.
Jordan Draper: Oh, cool. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I wanna share some of the process. What you didn't see is a graveyard box of tens and tens of different kinds. I made them different shapes, taller, thinner. The door mechanisms open differently. I was trying to put a sand timer inside of them at one point. So, I made a slot that you'd slide the sand timer into and then it would time for the laundry and you'd pull it out when it was done, just trying different things. That's the fun of having all that stuff at home, when you can 3D model yourself, 'cause you can just keep running through the process over and over again and get it exactly how you want it before you have to say ‘go' and make it into this mass produced thing.
Why Don't People Go as far as You Do With Components?
Patrick Rauland: That's so fantastic, I love it. Okay, so why don't other people put the amount of time and attention into components that you do? Because, I think if someone else did this coin game or they did the vending machine game, or there's the cool shipping container game, I think it would just be a max that says, “This is the shipping container. Put all your items in the shipping container and take them out when you get to the side.” Like, it would just be an area on the board. It would just be a token. It would just be a token that says ‘washing machine'. Why do people not go farther?
Jordan Draper: I think it just comes down to the fact that the industry has set up a standard for what's okay and everybody just follows this model and they aren't used to thinking about doing something different, or they don't have the means to make something 'cause it's more expensive, of course, to make 3D actual pieces. But, a lot of the bigger companies, they don't need to take the risk, because they have a model that works. A lot of the medium companies, that are somewhere in between, maybe they don't care to. And, the smaller companies, it's usually a cost per item thing.
Jordan Draper: For me, I came from product background and I've been making things my whole life. I love DIY stuff. My goal from a kid has been to understand and be able to make anything that exists in the world. So, I made a sofa from scratch once, just 'cause I wanted to learn how it was done and do the research. I'm that kind of person, where I don't care if it pays off, I just wanna know how to do it. So, bringing that in to game design, as soon as I saw how the industry had been running, and playing games for five to ten years, I was just blown away that everything had to be made out of paper or chipboard and there wasn't exploration into materiality and there wasn't exploration into forms. I decided that that was the thing I could bring, and I love playing games, so I just took a crack at it and it's been working out so far.
Patrick Rauland: That's really, really cool. I'm just trying to think about what games would look like if they had more components and more … Not more components, but more-
Jordan Draper: Thoughtful components, yeah.
Patrick Rauland: What's the word?
Jordan Draper: I would say thoughtful components.
Patrick Rauland: I really like that. So, I'm curious, I imagine your games are fun enough that people just play with the components, right? It's not a game, but even adults probably go, “Oh, wow. I can put the bottle into the vending machine and I can get it out of the bottom. That is really cool.”
Jordan Draper: Yeah, that was actually the goal, oddly enough. In this series of games I'm doing about Tokyo, basically four of them will be games where guest designers came in and made their own game rules using the components that were there. But, from the get-go, the idea was always to just make the components and then have people be able to take those and make a game out of them. So, I actually design all the components in those games before I design any games, so that I'm on the same footing as everybody else.
Patrick Rauland: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jordan Draper: I like to take them and put them in front of kids or other people that I know that like games or don't and see what they start doing with them. If they're immediately drawn to start fiddling with them and trying to come up with something, then I know I'm probably on to something good. So, my nephews take the Jidohanbaiki pieces, and the drinks and everything, and just started bringing them around in different crates and playing around with different rules. I think, if you can encourage that creativity within a set of components from the get-go, then you're gonna have a good product that turns out to be a good game.
What Would Games Look Like With Experiential Game Design?
Patrick Rauland: That's really, really fascinating, because I think when you make a thing … like this little toy washing machine, this little toy vending machine, or any of the other stuff that you made, I almost wanna call it experiential game design. Where you basically put it in front of people, and you just study them, then you build on what they would naturally do. Where you can't just put down a blank card in front of someone and see what they do with that, right?
Jordan Draper: Right. Yeah, it was actually a nice experiment to see what would happen if I had different designers come in and take those pieces, because everybody thinks differently. So, the Japanese designers that I worked with, they made completely different games than what I made. Some of my friends from the Netherlands and Germany made stuff that was off the wall in a different direction. Different mechanics, different types of games. Some of them made solo player games and others made economic investment games. That's just cool that that system can live up to all of those different types and still keep it simple, because you're working within the parameters of the pieces. I think on of my biggest things that I don't like about a lot of the heavier games in the industry now is that they just have too many things in the game. There's too many components. There's too many extra bits and texts and whatever that doesn't need to be there. I think design should be as minimal as possible to be good, which is a very Japanese way to look at it, but that makes sense to me.
Patrick Rauland: For me, personally, I always struggle between intuitiveness and crunchiness, 'cause I think a lot of people who like games like the crunchy, think-y, math-y part of it, where it's this really hard thing to figure out. By the way, maybe that's my bias, like maybe those are the people that I play with. But, I tend to like games that are a little bit lighter, less than an hour. Sometimes they can be kind of visual, right? They can be … I imagine I could play some of your games and they'd fit that bill, but a lot of people, they want to have like, “Play this card now and it gives you this many resources. Play it next turn, it'll give you slightly less resources. Play it the last turn in the game and it's worth 500 resources.” It's really, really hard to get simple components and simple games with … I don't know. How do you balance the crunchiness, that I think people want, with beautiful products?
Jordan Draper: Yeah. I mean, there's never a reason why you can't put those layers of depth into simple components or just a very simple play set of options. So, I like to play very heavy games and I design, I think, both ends of the spectrum, like Tokyo Metro is about a two hour economic trade investment game. There was no reason to cut back on the components or change anything to make it so that there was more depth or more choices. So, the only thing you can do in the game is work replacement and there's 12 different actions you can take, which have some overlap, and everything else just kinda melds out of that as you play the game. I mean, that's probably the further end of the spectrum. I think if you can limit the number of choices that players have, make it very simple to understand what they can do on their turn, but then build the layers of depth on top of that, because everything else flows out from that, and then keep the game balanced from players making decisions instead of the game deciding how it should be balanced, seems to be a good approach, for me anyway.
Patrick Rauland: Wow, I love it. So, I wanna talk to you about … You said, with some of your games you make these beautiful components … Is components the best word, by the way? I feel like that's a board game word, does that make sense with what you do?
Jordan Draper: I mean, I wouldn't look at it that way, but I'm also probably … Just because I've done sculpture exhibits before and I've worked a lot with metal and done some other things, I look at my games as a miniature art gallery, and I would look at these as sculptures really.
Patrick Rauland: Wow, cool.
Jordan Draper: Pieces of art, but that doesn't mean that they're not playable or enjoyable, which I think is really important. I want everything to be approachable, so you wanna go touch it and everything. But, that doesn't mean it can't be a work of art at the same, because I am sculpting all these by hand.
How Do You Work With Other Designers?
Patrick Rauland: Wow. All right, cool. I'm gonna go with ‘sculptures' for this episode. So, you make these sculptures and then you make at least one game, but then you also work with other people, and you kind of see what games they make. How does that work? Because, when you're making this Kickstarter page, do you advertise one game, the game you made? Do you advertise all the games that everyone made? If you do the latter, isn't that confusing to the backers?
Jordan Draper: So, the way that it's set up is, I make three games that come together each year. So, I'm making 12 in total. I actually design all of the games. So, two of the games I make all of the components and everything all the way through the game play and whatever. The third game is a very special one that's sort of set up as an experiment that I've been doing, which I make all of the components and do all of the artwork and everything, just as I normally would. Then, I'll design, usually, three or four games that you play as micro games inside of this. Then, all the guest designers that I ask to be part of it, they also make a micro game inside of that. Then, they get an advertisement inside of the game that's permanent in the box that ships with the games. So, they are also working with me on that particular title, but overall, the games are still my published games that I've worked countless hours on. So, kinda totally due to them and I love everyone that's been participating. It's so unique to see what they're bringing in to the games as a series. But, for me, I think the overarching umbrella is that is just the fact that I'm making this big system and seeing where things can flow within it as a framework if that makes sense.
Patrick Rauland: Yeah. No, I love that. Sorry, I was looking up some of your games on BoardGameGeek just ahead of time, again for research, and I was like, “Wait a second, if this is multiple games, how do people rate that?” ‘Cause if they love one game, one mini game, and they wanna give it a 10, but they hate this other game, and they wanna give it a zero. I just imagine that that's complexity and …
Jordan Draper: Yeah, I don't really know either actually. Well, besides the … I think it's called the Pyramid Arcade, which had a similar concept to this, but it was done over a lot longer time period. I'm not sure how that has been rated on the Geek. I think they look at that as a bigger macro experience, but I'm interested to see what happens with my games, because I know some people have not liked some of the little particular ones, but also there's over 20 games now. So, I'm sure there's something that everybody will like if it's in different category of mechanics. I would be shocked if somebody didn't like all of the 20 plus games from every single one of the designers, but you never know.
How Do You Get Started in 3d Design?
Patrick Rauland: Totally. So, let's say maybe you have a 3D printer, maybe you don't, but you do wanna start looking into making more … God, let's go ‘sculptures' again. You wanna make something beautiful in your game, more than just a cardboard token. Where do you get started with that whole process?
Jordan Draper: For me, I design mostly in Rhino 3D, which is a software for doing 3D modeling, I also use Fusion 360. So, these are like … There's a little bit of a learning curve to get into 3D modeling, but it's nothing crazy. If you were somebody who wanted to start doing this, but you didn't have any skills in 3D modeling, it is totally possible to do a basic sketch, or if you can't draw, then you can even just go to somebody else who draws or does 3D modeling and work with them to make that, as a starting step. Then, you can kind of refine it as you go and get an iteration of it and tell them what you want them to fix. For me personally, since I do it all myself, I usually just start modeling straight away, or I'll make a line drawing in Adobe Illustrator, which I also use a lot. Then, take that into the 3D modeling software and just extrude it into a 3D object and start sculpting it a little bit and changing some of the dimensions.
What is it Like Theming Your Game Around Mundane Topics?
Patrick Rauland: Maybe let's take a step back, because your games are kind of about mundane things, right? Like a washing machine, a vending machine, and the subway are not like … It's not like armies fighting over the world or economics and you're trying to buy this and do this, or at least they aren't all necessarily that way. Should you focus on small things like washing machines or … Should I focus on building a bike, like something more simple, but that would be a really cool component? Or, can you take this into some of those bigger games, where it's dudes on a map and you're trying to conquer the world, or something like that?
Jordan Draper: I mean, I think you could take it anywhere that you want to. I sort of call the ideas or the themes mundane on purpose, as sort of an inside joke to myself, because I absolutely love everything about like drinks in Japan. I got so excited when I found out there was so many different vending machines and drinks in Japan, I had to try all of them. I love mechanics and washing machines are fascinating. I love the feeling of being in a laundromat. So, for me, these are super inspiring things, but I totally get that they're every day objects that people don't think about. So, my goal was to bring that joy and excitement to other people by having them, hopefully, have a similar experience that I've had through that environment. But, that being said, I think if you're passionate about making something and you're passionate about a theme, you just need to find a way to convey that to other people without being present. So, however you wanna do that inside of the game, I think you should go for that. If you're just gonna repeat something that's already been done, and you're just gonna cut chips out, and have some of the same stuff, I don't think you're gonna accomplish that goal.
What Games Inspire You?
Patrick Rauland: Right, totally. What sort of games out there do inspire you? Besides awesome Japanese soda, what games out there inspire you?
Jordan Draper: Lots, there's a ton of good games. I think there's quite a few not so good games, but … Lay Waste Games, who I'm good friends with, they have a game called Dragoon which is really awesome. They actually cast their own 3D metal pieces of their dragons and the dragon dens and stuff. So, it's really fun to be immersed in that, which I enjoy. Japanese publishers are doing always genius things, I think, because they work with very minimal things, and then they pull out something that's really incredible that has a lot of strategy. Oink Games does really cool stuff, In a Grove is an interesting one from them, Startups is an interesting one. I'm pretty into these niche Japanese designer games lately, because they're light to middle weight and I travel so much that I don't have my consistent group to go back to.
Patrick Rauland: Ah.
Jordan Draper: But, back when I was in Salt Lake, I would play a lot of Sierra Madre Games, were pretty interesting. Like, all the Pax games are fun. They're not strategic at all in my opinion, besides one by Cole Wehrle, Pax Pamir. Phil Eklund is a designer and he always puts in these really in-depth stories of history and the game has so much narrative and things going on, but you more just have to play through it without expecting to have too much strategy. But, that as an idea is interesting, because nobody else is doing that. Nobody else is rewriting history in such a way that we can't control what's going on. This would've happened if you were actually living in the time, you wouldn't have had control over what all the governments did and all these other people that were outlaws were doing. I think that's a fascinating idea, to turn that into an experience and a game.
What Resources Do You Recommend?
Patrick Rauland: I love that. I have to say for me, I do love games that have alternative history, where it's like, “If this one thing was different, this is what the world would look like.” My friend loves this game, I think it's called Leviathan or maybe Leviathans, but it's like if we discovered this lighter than air molecule … Then, it's about ships flying through the sky … Battleship flying through the sky. I'm like, “Yes. I wanna play that game. I want to …” Also, that's probably a great time to have sculptures. They do have minis, because who doesn't wanna play with giant battleships flying above the earth? That sounds super fun. Okay, so are there any resources out there that you would recommend to someone who wants to do their own thing? Someone wants to run their own design company? Board game.
Jordan Draper: Yeah. I mean, if you wanna do your own designs and publish your own stuff, you should definitely look into using Kickstarter, it's an incredible tool. It can sustain you, if you're smart about how you go about it with your funding. There's quite a few lessons on it. I would take all of them with a grain of salt, but Jamie Stegmaier's written some good stuff on his blog, from Stonemaier games. But, at the end of the day, if you really wanna do it, you should go out and start talking to publishers who are doing this. They'll talk to you and give you their time, if they're not super huge, or sometimes they will even if they are super huge. I learned a lot that I wouldn't have known if I hadn't gone out and started meeting people in the industry and seeing how they were doing everything and what they were doing. So, I kinda mixed that with just forging my own path, and I got a pretty good entrepreneurial spirit where I don't work well working for anybody else, so I kinda already knew I'd be doing my own thing. So, I have the passion to do it, which is very helpful, and I'm willing to make the sacrifices to prioritize it. Learn from other people is the biggest thing.
How Many Kickstarters Have You Run?
Patrick Rauland: Love that. I think you've run five Kickstarter's, is that right?
Jordan Draper: I've run, I think, seven or eight now.
Patrick Rauland: Oh.
Jordan Draper: But, some of them were failures and nobody knows about them, so that's fine.
Patrick Rauland: Oh, okay. ‘Cause I was looking at your Kickstarter page and it said five, but maybe it doesn't show the ones that didn't fund or something.
Jordan Draper: Yeah.
What Have You Learned About Kickstarter?
Patrick Rauland: What have you learned from those? What is a thing on your first Kickstarter campaign you did poorly, and now you don't make that mistake anymore?
Jordan Draper: Yeah, I mean, the very first Kickstarter campaign that I ran was interesting. I did it for some leather wallets that I was laser cutting. I set the goal at $10,000 when I should have set it at $1,000 and bought a cheaper laser cutter, but I was like, “I'm gonna raise $10,000 and buy this really nice laser cutter.” I think that's a big mistake a lot of people do the first time, they set a goal too high or they think that it's gonna be easy to do without putting in a lot of the background effort and doing the research for why they succeed, why Kickstarter succeeds.
Patrick Rauland: Yeah.
Jordan Draper: Then, another great thing, for me, was that I made the first three games that I did by hand. I made the boxes and everything by hand. Because I did that, I was able to do a print run of 150 games.
Patrick Rauland: Oh, cool.
Jordan Draper: If I hadn't done that, then I wouldn't have had enough money to manufacture them. So, that was literally the make or break. I would've just had two or three failures instead of three successful campaigns that built an audience and then launched me into a much bigger game. So, whatever you have to do to make it work, try it out and make it work, and don't get ahead of yourself and don't try to set too high of a goal. Think small, take small steps. When you get there, take the next step and keep working your way up until you're where you wanna be.
Do You Recommend Small Print Runs?
Patrick Rauland: So, this is actually really relevant to what I'm working on right now with my game. It's a little micro card game, called Fry Thief. It's about 17 cards and some tokens. I've talked to a lot of manufacturers in China and a lot of them have minimums of 1,500 units. I've heard from some people there's minimums of 1,000 from this person or whatever, but that's a lot of units. Even for a tiny game, I think with shipping and everything included, I think I'd have to have a funding goal of $5,000 which seems really high for me for a first time creator. So, I'm doing a ton of research into can I do this smaller with less components? Or, can I get a different … Now, I'm looking into, can I reach out to this manufacturer and get a box from them? Just 250 boxes. Then, get the cards from these people. I'm trying to source the pieces individually. Is that something you'd recommend, or do you-
Jordan Draper: Yes. You're doing the right thing. Basically, I would say set the goal as low as you can the first time through, just in case. What you'll do is you'll set up … You should set up a plan B, plan C, plan D, plan E, and plan F for ‘if it gets bigger, what do I do? If it gets bigger than this, then where do I go?' I would suggest, first of all, to … If you wanna make not even 500 copies, 'cause it is possible to do 500 copies with certain manufacturers, but I would recommend just sourcing the cards and tuck box, potentially, from someone like Printer Studio. Which the quality is not the best, but I printed all the cards in my first two games from them, they're still around and people aren't complaining. So, they can't be that bad. But, that way you literally have no print run conditions. All you have to do is figure out your margins and say, if I'm gonna make 50 copies, which that's not a bad place to start, then you can look at how much does it cost to get 50 decks. They'll make tuck boxes for you there, or you can get custom ones made. But, if you are gonna do that, I would at least get a sample and make sure it's how you want it to look.
Jordan Draper: Yeah, set your very minimum, and then know how you can get it and how much it will cost and then set your goal there. So, you do want to have some wiggle room, of course. I mean, you need to throw in probably a couple 1,000 extra, just in case something goes wrong or whatever, but maybe you're only looking at a goal of $1,500 dollars then or $1,000. If it's not a big deal to you to break even, you can set a super low goal, and then you can just scale it up from there. If you have a success, that's great, because the next time you make a Kickstarter everybody's gonna come back from the first one, and then you're gonna have more people and you'll gain momentum every time.
Patrick Rauland: Cool, I love that and I appreciate hearing that, because the numbers were good from when I'm getting 1,500 units from China, but I just was not confident I could get that many copies sold or even a third of that many copies sold. But, I'm pretty confident just with friends and family and an extended network, I can get 100 people and then build from there.
Jordan Draper: Yeah, that's a great place to start. That's awesome.
What Does Success Look Like?
Patrick Rauland: Thank you. Okay, so I like to end with two questions here. Number one, what does success look like to you?
Jordan Draper: I'll tell you, for me personally, I mean, I also do some architectural designs that I'm working on for shipping container homes on the side, which I wanna launch into another company. So, for me, I'm using this as a catalyst to get to that.
Patrick Rauland: Really?
Jordan Draper: So, success for me is a certain number of dollars in the bank to launch that other company and still continue success. But, I want to have all 12 of the Tokyo series games done in a nice package, so that they exist and I can keep having this online database of rules. I would probably label that as like my published success.
Patrick Rauland: I love that. Sorry, container homes? Like, is this when a shipping container is being old or not being used anymore and you can stick 'em together and cut holes in 'em and make it something livable?
Jordan Draper: Yeah, I'm sort of taking that concept a step further, because I've designed a prefabricated glass reinforced concrete panel system inside, so you can put this inside and rearrange your house as you want to. Then, you have these peg holes to hang shelves or whatever you want on the walls. The idea is you can actually ship the home, because I'm not altering it so much that it can't be shipped anymore. So, it goes on temporary foundations and then you can move your home wherever you want.
Patrick Rauland: What?
Jordan Draper: It's super affordable, off the grid. That's the whole pitch of it.
Patrick Rauland: That's so cool.
Jordan Draper: Yeah, thank you.
Overrated Underrated Game
Patrick Rauland: That is super cool. All right, we'll have to talk about that off the air later, 'cause I used to be into tiny homes and I could talk to you for hours about tiny sustainable living stuff. I don't know if all the audience wants to listen to that. Okay, so I like to end my show with this little game called Overrated, Underrated, have you heard of it?
Jordan Draper: No, I don't think so.
Patrick Rauland: Excellent. Good, I like throwing people into the deep end. So, I'm going to throw out a word or a phrase, and then you're gonna have to give me a … you have to respond with if you think it's overrated or underrated. So, if I say Tokyo, is it overrated or underrated, you're probably gonna say, “It's underrated, because there's all this cool stuff,” and give me a one or two sentence explanation. Got it?
Jordan Draper: Cool. Awesome.
Patrick Rauland: Now, you were at Gen Con this year, right? Perfect, so Gen Con, overrated or underrated?
Jordan Draper: This is my first time, but I guess I'll go with underrated. I don't have enough experience yet. It was fun though, I had a lot of fun. I think I get overwhelmed at conventions and I don't get to experience them as much as I should.
Patrick Rauland: Yeah.
Jordan Draper: So, I'm gonna say underrated. I got more time to spent there.
Patrick Rauland: Awesome. Laundry in your apartment unit, overrated or underrated?
Jordan Draper: I think overrated, because, obviously, I made a game about laundromats and I like to go out to the laundromat and have some unique experiences and just kind of relax there. It's a very nice place to go and forget about the world. You can't leave, because you have to wait for your laundry, so you just read a book or do whatever, it's great.
Patrick Rauland: The good old fashioned D6, overrated or underrated?
Jordan Draper: Definitely overrated. I have made a rule to not use them in my games, and so far I haven't used any.
Patrick Rauland: Oh, that's so funny. That's so cool. You made a rule about it.
Jordan Draper: Yeah, I mean, it's kind of a personal thing that nobody knows about, but there's no dice in my games, you'll notice.
Patrick Rauland: Very cool. Lastly, Thingiverse, which for those of you who don't know, it is a website where you can look up all these cool 3D designs. Is Thingiverse overrated or underrated?
Jordan Draper: Probably underrated. There's not enough people in forum settings talking about 3D modeling and doing different things within that. If we can hit that and have that become a mainstream thing, then we are gonna move forward so fast in design work and hopefully having better designs, but we'll see if the masses care enough or not.
Wrap Up
Patrick Rauland: Cool. So, Jordan, thanks for being on the show. Where can people find you online?
Jordan Draper: Yeah. Thanks, Patrick. People can find me on Twitter, I'm @TheJordanDraper. Same with Instagram. Then, my website is www.JordanDraper.com, you can learn about all my games there and where to purchase them. Then, I also have an email, feel free to reach out to me, it's just talk@jordandraper.com.
Patrick Rauland: Love it. Listeners, if you liked this podcast, please leave us a review on iTunes or wherever you listened to the podcast. If you leave a review, Jordan will buy you a mystery drink from a Tokyo vending machine. Does that sound good, Jordan?
Jordan Draper: A mystery vending machine, all right. Well, meet me in Japan first and we'll make it happen.
Patrick Rauland: Awesome. You can visit the site at indieboardgamedesigners.com. You can follow me on Twitter, I am @BFTrick. That's ‘B' as in board game, ‘F' as in fun, and ‘trick' as in trick-taking games. So, I've been mentioning Fry Thief in the last couple episodes. If you want to follow along, there's a page on my website all about Fry Thief, you can sign up for the newsletter and I'll share designs as they're coming out and stuff like that. I think that's all from me. So, until next time, everyone, happy designing. Bye-bye.
